B+LNZ claims farmers still want HWEN

The issue has been in the headlines in the past week with rumours that the Government has lost patience with the primary sector negotiators and is considering introducing a fertiliser tax.

Meanwhile, B+LNZ has begun holding a series of farmer meetings around the country to get feedback on key issues affecting their levy payers. A big one which has been identified is He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN). At a meeting in Southland last week, B+LNZ chief executive Sam McIvor - who was at the meeting - told Rural News that the message from the meeting was clear: 'we want you to keep negotiating with others and not get into a position which forces the Government to act unilaterally.'

McIvor says B+LNZ's bottom lines on HWEN include farmers being recognised for sequestration on their properties, and ensuring that money raised by a levy is put into agricultural research or on-farm changes that reduce emissions.

The farmer meetings are a closed shop for levy payers only; no media or rural professionals allowed despite the meetings being advertised publicly. This reporter travelled 150km to a meeting only to be turned away, based on the strange premise that media presence would stifle farmer responses.

McIvor says the meetings are designed to get general feedback and to help better connect the leadership of B+LNZ with farmers - a concern that was raised at the organisation's recent AGM. He says Southland farmers expressed their frustrations at the Government over winter grazing consents and freshwater issues.

"Overall, farmers are feeling that bow wave of regulation coming forward and they are concerned about the quality and the lack of understanding by decision makers on what farmers are doing and how they operate. This is leading to uncertainty which in turn is constraining quite a bit of future decision making."

McIvor says farmers feel the good news about what they are doing is not getting out to the wider public and have tasked B+LNZ with upping the ante on this.